Watch Me Fall Apart
by Babydollunderthesky
Summary: The Potter family falls apart: as told by James Potter, who's deaf and not going to Hogwarts. Intrigued?


**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I own nothing. One-shot. **

WATCH ME FALL APART

Hi. My name is James Sirius Potter. I was named after my grandfather and my father's godfather. I have been told that they are extraordinarily brave men who gave up their lives protecting the ones they loved. I have also been told that my own father, Harry Potter, has since the age of eleven risked his own neck to protect those in need.

I don't really know if I believe this or not. I don't really know if I should believe anything I've been told. Maybe it's because I never got to step on the Hogwarts Express. Maybe it's because I never got that Hogwarts letter, or got to buy a wand, or got to do anything that should have been in my birthright.

Lily, my younger sister, is home for the holidays, and it's made me even more bitter than I usually am. She's in her room right now, rifting through all the young adult novels she collects when she's not at that school. I think of them as young adult novels, especially since it's written somewhere on the book, or on the internet. Lily, on the other hand, sometimes forgets and calls them Muggle books.

Lily's about to head in for her fifth year at Hogwarts, and I would have been heading for my seventh had I received a letter. But instead I go to a normal school, except that it's still not normal. Isn't that funny – I can't be magical…can't be normal either.

Anyhow, I go to a center instead of school with other children who suffer as I do. My sufferings not as bad as the others, but that's only because I haven't had anything else to compare it with. I've always been deaf, and being deaf is all I will ever know.

My parents have, in either sign language or white boards, told me that they discovered my ailment when I was around a year old and didn't react at all when a cabinet full of glass figurines crashed onto the ground.

My mother had been readjusting something on it, and it fell on her, almost crushing her. But she'd been built to survive worse conditions, or so I have been told, so she was okay. She was just surprised as to how I didn't start crying, didn't even turn to the direction of the noise.

After mum was all right, they took me to a specialist and found out that their son was deaf.

I don't remember much of my childhood. It's always just flashes, because that's how it usually is, unless the event in hand is something traumatic. In this way, I can only clearly remember the events that happened when I was ten-years-old.

By then, I'd started to perfect my ability to read lips, but hadn't really bothered to put it up to use until the night of the accident.

My sister was eight then and mum and Lily had gone to visit Grandma and Granpa Granger. They were supposed to be home by nine at night. Dad and I stayed home playing wizarding chess. I'd already beaten him twice when he started glancing at the fireplace worriedly. He then pulled out his cellphone, an emergency-cases-only device, and dialed. I set the board up again for a new game.

Dad turned away then, and I was left centering the chess pieces to pass the time. He was gone for a full five minutes before I made my way around the house, searching for him.

I found him in the kitchen, talking at a rate so fast I could only catch certain words: "What" "Seven" "Dinner" "Cellphone" "Where".

I remember reading those five words before dad got off the phone and turned to me. He walked forward, leveling himself to my height.

"I have to go out for a little while. I'll drop you off at Uncle Ron's," he spoke and signed at the same time. I nodded slowly. He looked worried all of the sudden, his eyes wide with fear and his chest rising and falling quickly.

He led me to the fireplace before turning to his cellphone again. He answered it, his one hand firm on my shoulder. I looked up at him, his worried look increasing in intensity. He began speaking again, this time so slowly I could read everything. He was panting in between his words. I could tell.

"Yes…Harry Potter...yes…my wife…where…why…is she…okay?"

He got off the phone again and turned to me, before smiling weakly. He'd gone pale in the last two minutes. He began to pull me forward towards the fireplace, but I planted my feet tightly on the ground and gave a cry.

He signed to me, telling me I had to go to Uncle Ron's while he went to check on mum, but I shook my head. I could tell by the sickened look on his face that something was wrong. I shook my head violently, pulling out of his arms and trying to run away until he was forced to pull his arms around my waist as I thrashed. I wanted my mum. I just wanted to see her.

He had to apparate then, and it was difficult because of all my thrashing, but soon we were outside of Uncle Ron's flat. Dad beat the door with his right fist while keeping his left arm tight around my chest. Uncle Ron opened the door and dad said something. I couldn't see his lips, but Uncle Ron's expression of concern and surprise soon mimicked dad's worried one. He helped dad bring me into the apartment as I fought back and screamed.

I was on the couch then, and decided to calm down. My eyes were threatening to tear up then. Why couldn't I go with dad?

Uncle Ron stared at dad then. His expression was grave. There was a sign of movement to my right and I turned and saw Aunt Luna coming out of the bedroom. The three of them stood still for a moment before Uncle Ron lunged at dad with his bare hands, knocking dad's wand out of his hand. Aunt Luna ran back into the room. I thought she was scared, but then she came out holding her own wand, flicked it, said something and soon Uncle Ron was off dad and thrown back across the floor. Dad looked at him, scared.

I was scared too.

Then Uncle Ron was yelling. I could tell by how his face got red and his mouth was open wide. His veins were showing. His ears were extremely red.

"This is your fault, Harry."

I looked at dad.

"I need to go to the hospital. She's there."

I looked at Uncle Ron.

"You make it your life's work to save every…" I didn't understand the word he'd said then, but now I know he'd cursed. "…life, and the one person you let slip has to be Hermione."

I looked at dad.

He wasn't saying anything.

He was just staring back.

I began crying then.

I noticed how the three adults turned to me then.

Aunt Luna reached me first, placing a hand on my back softly. She pulled me into a hug. I broke out of it though. I couldn't let her hug me. I couldn't let her hug me the way mum would when I lost my temper or would throw one of my fits.

I ran at dad and hit him as hard as I could. I didn't care what I was hitting, or with what, I just needed to hurt him. I was full on crying then. And he just accepted my punches until he could wrap his arms around me tightly. He let me hit him until I stopped, at which he gripped me tightly.

I was still crying after I'd calmed down. It'd been a long time and Uncle Ron had left. I didn't bother to try and figure out the reason why. Soon though he was back, this time carrying a sleeping Lily in his arms.

He laid Lily down on the couch as dad continued to hold onto me.

Uncle Ron's eyes looked watery as well. I squeezed my own shut, trying to get rid of my tears.

When I opened them again, it was morning.

Five days later, I was seeing another specialist. A grief specialist more akin to my condition. We talked through boards and papers rather than signs. Or, more accurately, she talked and I refused to respond.

The day after that was mum's funeral.

Almost a year later, I got no letter to Hogwarts and September 1st past.

Around six years after that, here I was, at home. I had a whiteboard in my hand, and I was sitting at the counter as my dad did the dishes.

I grunted, he turned, and I held up my board.

_I'm angry._

He put down the plate he'd been scrubbing, and dried his hands. He turned to me.

"Why?"

I rubbed out what I'd written. I wrote something else.

_Mum._

He blinked, looked away for a moment, blinked, and looked back at me again. But I'd caught it. I'd caught that fleeting second in which the pain overrode him and I could see his insides crush and I could see his heart break again.

He couldn't say anything.

I rubbed out my writing again.

_Why did she die?_

I showed it to him. He swallowed.

"I'm sorry, James. I'm sorr-"

I threw the board to the ground. I threw it to the ground and bent my head down, forcing back tears. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Lily had approached, having probably heard whatever sound it is that whiteboards make when they hit the floor.

She was looking at the board, at what I had written.

She reached out, and I turned to her and glared. She backed away.

I got off the stool and walked out of the kitchen.

The next day, I woke with dad sitting at the foot of my bed. He had my whiteboard in his hands, and passed it to me. There was a long note written on it carefully so as to adjust to the space.

_I messed up. I was an auror. There were certain bad guys – death eaters – who I had put behind bars. Their children decided that I needed to know what it would be like to feel that kind of pain. I knew for years before you were born that they would try something like this. Your mother knew as well. That's why she left your grandparents' house. That's why she ran when she noticed something was wrong. She didn't take Lily with her because it would be too dangerous. She was trying to save Lily by keeping the bad guys away._

I handed the board back to him, and he began rubbing out the words with his hand. He wrote something else and gave it back to me.

_I'm paying, James. Every day. _

Then he got up, shoved his hands into his pockets, and walked out of my room.

The next day I left the house without leaving any note. I walked up to my mother's grave, only to find Lily already sitting infront of it. She had a cigarette between her lips, and was giving me a steady stare.

I pulled the cigarette out of her mouth, examined it, and then gave it back to her. She put it back between her lips.

_How long?_ I signed.

_Since I was thirteen_ she signed back.

_Why?_ I signed back.

Lily turned to the gravestone as she signed her message. _Because it was me. She had to save me. _

_She wanted to._

Lily tossed her head back then, and pulled the cigarette out. She rubbed it against the ground until it was nothing more.

She then leaned her head on my shoulder, and signed, stretching her hands out infront of us.

_Dad's going back to being an auror. He's taking a mission this coming August. _

I nodded.

_He's guilty._

I nodded again.

_I'm guilty. _

I nodded again.

_But everything is killing you the most._

I paused, and felt her adjust her cheek so she was looking up at me.

I nodded, slowly.

She gripped my arm tightly. I glanced down to see she was crying.

I hugged her.

We went back home later as the it grew dark. When we entered the house, dad was already there, preparing dinner. I touched his shoulder and he turned to face me. I hugged him as well.

And then I went upstairs, dropped into my bed, pulled up my covers, and tried my best to go to sleep.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: What do you think?**


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